A Super Lobbyist Displays His Super Ego

This American Life, the NPR show that airs Saturday and
again Sunday mornings on WLRN, this week featured a segment on the Julia Tuttle
Causeway and the sex offender camp that festered in its bowels for more than
two years.

Most Miamian’s are, by now, aware
of the contradictions and the ironies and the policies-gone-amok that created
that mess. But the NPR show, reported by former New Times writer Isaiah Thompson, offers a stunning performance of the self-styled
super lobbyist Ron Book. It is a study in unapologetic megalomania as Book both
defends the dodge logic behind the sex offender residency laws he invented and the Napoleon-like power the unelected campaign money bag man wields in this
community. It makes for stunning listening.